Newspapers as Sources for Scottish Research © – By Dr. David Dobson
“Newspapers are one of the most potentially rich sources of data for genealogists and historians but are generally underused. Scottish newspapers are no exception. In fact, eighteenth-century newspapers abound with information on trade, politics, court cases, shipping, emigration, wars, travel, births, marriages, deaths, politics, and local events in particular.
Take for example, the undernoted information culled from the pages of ‘The Caledonian Mercury’. In June 1748 it reported that the ship the Gordon of Glasgow with a cargo of salt and bale goods which had been loaded in London and was bound for Virginia, put into Dublin. There 81 men and boys together and 26 women, all indentured servants, were embarked for shipment to America. On May 1st, the ship left Dublin and sailed through St George’s Channel, and then west across the Atlantic. When the ship was 500 leagues on its voyage on 13th May, the indentured servants mutinied, overcame the master and the crew, then forced them to sail to the Isle of Skye. However, the mutiny came to an end when the Gordon of Glasgow was seized by Captain Brett of HMS Triton off the coast of the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. Twelve of the mutineers escaped, while the rest were taken prisoner to Greenock. Presumably they were in due course transported to America, but the fate of those who escaped is unknown.
In September of the same year the said newspaper reported another such incident involving ‘passengers’ bound for Chesapeake Bay. The article referred to a snow, the Mary, master James Johnston, bound from London for Maryland with a cargo of 17 Irish and English convicts due to be sold in America. This practice was not unusual, during the American colonial period; England transported around 50,000 felons to the colonies to be sold as servants to the planters and merchants. Scotland also took part in the trade and sent around 3,000 men and women to be sold as indentured servants. The “Caledonian Mercury” in its article reported that when the Mary was lying off Leith the convicts mutinied and escaped with part of the cargo. Whether or not the convicts were recaptured and sent to America is not stated but among those who made their escape were – John Coop, 18, pock-marked, with sandy hair; Matthew Barratt, 34, with a fair complexion; William Goodman, 32, a thin visage, black hair; John Carnegie, 21, middle stature, wearing a wig; Joseph Wilkieson, 38, five foot eight inches, with a bushy head of hair;, John Jones, 50, middle stature, bushy hair; William Broughton, 22, five foot five inches; William Boun, with stooped shoulders, a hook nose, and thin visage; John Finch, 25, pale faced, thin visage; and Elisha Williams, 35, formerly a soldier, five foot nine inches, with a ruddy face..
Nowadays many old newspapers have been digitized and are available online, which facilitates research, for example on The British Newspaper Archive website. However, many of our reference libraries contain original newspapers, some of which are not available online. Most of the newspapers that are available date from the nineteenth century, very few date back to the seventeenth century. Probably the most useful, such source, at least for the eighteenth century, is ‘The Scots Magazine,’ which date from 1739, in that it was highly indexed (Browsing through newspapers is time consuming though potentially interesting). Early newspapers for Tayside, Scotland include the “Dundee, Perth, and Cupar Advertiser,” founded in 1801, [it became the “Dundee Advertiser” in 1816] and the “Perthshire Advertiser and Strathmore Journal,” founded 1829. Other local newspapers can generally be found in Dundee Reference Library or in the A. K. Bell Library in Perth. Further afield in the National Library of Scotland or the Mitchell Library in Glasgow, there are other early newspapers such as the “Caledonian Mercury,” founded in 1720, the “Aberdeen Journal,” founded in 1748, and “The Scotsman,” founded in 1817.”
David Dobson is the author of hundreds of books on Scottish and Irish genealogy and emigration. Scottish Genealogy. The Basics and Beyond, by Dr. Dobson, is the best guidebook on the market for the intermediate-level genealogist.
Here are David Dobson’s 2026 titles to date:
- Scottish Seafarers at Home and Abroad
- Scottish Soldiers and Prisoners of War, 1638-1652: The Wars of the Three Kingdoms
- Directory of Scots in the Carolinas. Consolidated Edition
